Skip to main content
Harry Knowles loves "Sum of All Fears"



[Director] Phil Alden Robinson has crafted one of the absolute best spy thrillers ever made. From the way he established the settings, to the way he fills you with dread and hopelessness, to the GODFATHER II moment (you’ll know it) this was cinematically charging. This film is absolutely captivating. Never really doing the expected. Avoid all SPOILER REVIEWS and realize that they do exist, so don’t read the talk backs. The movie was so good I wanted to smoke a pack of cigarettes afterwards, and I don’t smoke.
Clancey's novel is one of my favorites, right after The Hunt for Red October. The first two-thirds of Sum can be tedious, but when It happens in Denver, you realize that the character setups during all that tedious reading were necessary. To me, Sum stands as a Fail-Safe for our time, a cautionary tale that despite the US being the world's only superpower, nuclear war is still a very real possibility.



I was less than happy with the announced changes. Can you think of anything more appropriate today than Arab terrorists? Can you think of a stronger statement than, as in the book, the Arabs themselves try the accused, convict, sentence, and carry out that sentence? In the novel, Ryan stands up to a president who is about to vaporize an entire city to get after a mullah responsible for the entire mess. The moral clarity of that scene stands as one of my favorite literary moments.



Well, maybe it survived the translation to neo-Nazi terrorists, but I doubt it. Nonetheless, it begins to sound like this might be a "must see" film. I'll try and put my disappointments aside.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

The Dark Knight is the best film I’ve seen in years. Not just the best “superhero” film, but the best film of any type. It’s not perfect, not quite a masterpiece, but it’s flaws are, to me, tiny and overwhelmed by the time the film ends. While relatively bloodless, it is consistently brutal, not just in what it depicts but in the themes that drive it. TDK is a film for adults, please leave the kids at home. Let’s deal with those “flaws” first, the largest being the character Rachel Dawes . In Batman Begins , I blamed Katie Holmes . Her acting was weak, to say the least, which is regrettable in that who she is and what she says and does are important to the film. Critics agreed and either for that or other reasons, Katie was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who is a better actress. Yet here she’s weak, real weak. Maybe it’s the character, not the actress, which is frustrating because Rachel is a pivotal character. The film,...
1 comment
Read more

John Wick: Chapter 4

No sense in playing coy, this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and while I don’t quite love it in the way I love the first, original John Wick , it’s my #2. It’s a little overlong, has some wasted space and time, has one absolutely pointless and useless character, and generally ignores the realities of firefights, falling, getting shot, hit, etc. All that notwithstanding, it’s a great action flick, has a genuine emotional core, and is well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Like I am. Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves), last seen saying he was fed up with the High Table, goes to war to obtain his freedom. Some of the most incredible action scenes ever filmed ensue, culminating in a very satisfactory finale and a devastating post-credit scene. The first Wick film was a surprise hit. It was a simple, straight-forward tale of vengeance told in a simple, straight-forward manner. Where it stood out was its devotion to human stunt work, on exploiting long camera shots that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

We pause now for a minor rant…

“My car has a flat tire.” “You should buy a new car.” Every time I hear President Obama and other Democrats talking about “health care reform,” that’s what the conversation sounds like. A health care crisis is declared and the only solution is to replace the entire system. At most, around 15% of the American population is without health care insurance. Ignoring the fact that for most of them, this is a matter of choice, it also means that 85% are insured. And of that 85%, something like 70+% like their current coverage and don’t want the government to touch it. So for the vast majority, the current system works and works great. Yet, because of the minority for whom it allegedly does not...toss it all, start again. Admittedly, regardless of insurance coverage, it all costs too much, but again, the only accepted approach to controlling costs are to throw out everything and turn it all over to the government. Tactics that are proposed to address specific cost issues are not consid...
Post a Comment
Read more